Southern Humboldt Faces Foreclosures as Countywide Market Finds Its Footing

For Sale [Photo by Ian Muttoo via Wikimedia Commons] 

An online presentation on the local housing market shows Humboldt’s home sales hit a low point in 2023 but are climbing back up again in what’s described as “a very normal, healthy, balanced market.”

Realtor Annalise Von Borstel, who owns Hyperion Humboldt Realty and chairs the Humboldt Association of Realtors Government Relations Committee, gave a detailed presentation on the county’s housing market at the Feb. 18 Community Economic Resilience Consortium meeting.

Using data from national, state and county Association of Realtors groups, Humboldt Multiple Listings Services and the U.S. Bureau of Labor, Von Borstel described a local market that dropped from a 2021 peak into a valley two years later from which it’s now emerging.

Home prices have outpaced the state’s inflation, which rose about 28 percent in the last six years while Humboldt’s housing prices have increased 31 percent during that time, said Von Borstel.

Number of home sales bottomed out in 2023 with 1,004 sales but “that trend’s already beginning to reverse,” Von Borstel said.

Still, low inventory combined with higher interest rates and inflation have cooled the market in recent years along with a “mortgage lock-in effect” discouraging people from moving.

“Committing to making a large investment during very uncertain and volatile times is pretty difficult,” said Von Borstel. “So people are watching things either really closely right now or they don’t want to look at all.”

But she added that recent housing market changes “aren’t very drastic,” especially when compared to crashes like the one seen in 2008, when only 876 homes were sold in Humboldt.

“That’s about 15 percent lower than the dip we saw in 2023, which we’re already recovering from,” she said.

On housing affordability, 30 percent of Humboldt’s households could afford to buy a home as of the last quarter of 2025, with a median home price of $413,000.

That’s an improvement from the last quarter of 2024 at 22 percent.

Von Borstel said Humboldt “sits approximately in the middle of the state” when it comes to housing affordability.

Discussing effects of the cannabis economy downturn, Von Borstel said Southern Humboldt’s market hit a peak in 2017, when residential properties were “selling for more than anywhere else in Humboldt.”

But “very quickly, we see that inverted” in 2020, when SoHum’s market “fell below all other markets.”

There was “a bit of a climb in 2021” but it’s “taking a more obvious dive now, in 2025.” Southern Humboldt’s number of home sales has actually increased 63 percent since 2023 but Von Borstel said there’s “a lot of foreclosures in Southern Humboldt right now – land values are being affected by that, as well as the flood of properties that are coming onto the market.”

She added, “It’s driving up competition for sellers and unfortunately, it’s a little bit of a race to the bottom right now down there.”

Overall, “the pendulum has been swinging” in recent years, said Von Borstel, but “a pretty healthy balanced market” is seen with current supply/demand levels.

“Prices have been flat, interest rates are down and so that’s starting to actually drive up demand,” she continued. “If somebody is a buyer, this could be a really great time to take advantage of lower prices before they start going up with the lower interest rates.”

Von Borstel’s presentation didn’t include rental properties, which was acknowledged by Eureka Councilmember Leslie Castellano but she asked how Eureka’s recent spate of affordable housing development could affect the market.

“Generally when a large housing facility is added to a community it is going to impact housing for a short time, usually maybe three years,” Von Borstel said, adding that’s what Arcata experienced in recent years.

Asked about the McKinleyville Town Center mixed use, urban approach to residential planning, Von Borstel talked about what attracts people to Humboldt.

“My experience is that people move to Humboldt because of our rural area and the fact that we have beautiful nature accessible, so they’re not really looking for that higher density urban lifestyle,” she said.

While Humboldt’s housing is “overwhelmingly concentrated” in Eureka, Von Borstel said “niche communities” and rural areas are “all going to be swept up into averages and medians when discussing the county in general, so outliers can and do impact the reporting.”

Humboldt’s population level isn’t driving demand. Von Borstel said the county’s population has dropped 3 percent from the 2020 census and Eureka’s population is down by 4 percent.